Firefox 3 Look & Feel

Yeah, yeah, I too downloaded it on the "Download Day" -- in three computers actually: office Linux, home Linux, and Laptop Windows. :-)

One of the nice features of the new Firefox 3 is that its look & feel is integrated with the native look of the operating systems. It is generally not obvious in Windows, because all the Windows applications have to follow the rule. But it is very obvious in Linux (no idea about Mac platform.)

However, there is a catch using Firefox 3 with KDE desktop environment, because Firefox 3 is incorporated with the GTK widget set, whereas KDE uses the QT widget set. Still I was able to get the KDE look & feel in Firefox 3 in my Kubuntu system using Kubuntu's system settings. Go to the System Settings -> Appearance -> GTK Styles and Fonts and make sure all the GTK components are set to use the KDE settings.

Before I realized that FF3 is using native look & feel, I had this irritating widget set in FF3. Only after I searched through Google for a while, I realized that I can not change anything in FF3, but have to change my KDE look & feel. I was using Domino widget style, which was fine outside FF3 but terrible for gmail. Once I switched to QtCurve widget style (just my preference, nothing particular), everything was good.

FF3's native theme on Linux is boring, and many other themes from Mozilla web site behave oddly. After a few iterations, I am now settled with "Phoenity Reborn" theme; it looks pretty good!